Angela Eagle launched her bid to become Labour’s first woman leader with a pledge to kick out Jeremy Corbyn and win the next General Election.

The ex-Shadow Business Secretary denied she is on a political “suicide mission” and insisted she can replace Mr Corbyn whether or not he is included in the looming leadership contest.

She told supporters: “I’m not a Blairite. I’m not a Brownite. And I’m not a Corbynista.

“I am my own woman – a strong, Labour woman.”

However, she could face immediate competition from former Shadow Work and Pensions secretary Owen Smith, who may launch a rival bid in the coming days.

The popular left-winger has significant support among Labour MPs and has secured the 51 nominations he needs to join Ms Eagle on the ballot.

Friends said he will make a final decision this week.

Keep the pink flag flying (Image: Getty)

If Mr Corbyn is also in the contest Labour MPs have made clear they want to unite around a single contender to try to beat him.

One MP said: “Angela has triggered the contest and that’s good. In the end though we will resolve to support only one candidate.”

But Ms Eagle insisted she is the best candidate to reunite the party and take the fight to Theresa May’s new-look Tory Government.

She formally submitted her list of 51 MPs’ names to the party chairman Iain McNicol yesterday.

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A formal leadership contest is now under way and Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) will meet today for its most important summit in a generation.

The committee will discuss the thorny issue of whether Mr Corbyn should automatically be on the ballot of Labour Party members that will decide the next leader or whether he – like any other contender – must win support from 51 Labour MPs and MEPs.

Mr Corbyn’s stock among Labour MPs has fallen so low that he would find it almost impossible to get the nominations if required.

Theresa May (Image: PA)

He insists he has legal advice that he should automatically be a candidate and has threatened court action if the NEC rules against him today.

But at her launch in London yesterday Ms Eagle insisted she can beat him regardless, and urged moderate Labour supporters to join the party and fight off the challenge from the Corbynistas.

She said: “I don’t go in for suicide missions. I have launched my campaign – I intend to win.”

The NEC will also today decide the timetable for the leadership contest, and the cut-off point for how many new members and supporters are allowed a vote.

More than 100,000 new members have joined Labour in the past fortnight since Britain voted to leave the EU – many of them specifically to support Mr Corbyn.

Ms Eagle, who is from the left of the party, insisted she can win over the pro-Corbyn supporters as she is a “practical socialist” who can lead “with the confidence of the Parliamentary party” behind her.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves his home in north London (Image: PA)

She was careful to praise the current leader for his work in pulling Labour further to the Left with his anti-austerity message, but said he is no longer showing the leadership the party needs.

She said: “He has been hiding behind a door not talking to his MPs – that’s not leadership.

“He has done great things. He’s opened up the party to new ideas. But we need other people to take them forward.”

Deputy leader Tom Watson last night called for a swift contest to resolve the leadership.

And he made clear his despair at his inability to strike a deal with trade unions and Labour power players for Mr Corbyn to step down of his own accord.

He told the weekly meeting of Labour MPs in Parliament last night: “I’ve always been told I’m a fixer. I tried to fix this and I couldn’t.”

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He added that, like Mr Corbyn, he has a direct mandate from Labour members – but that if he had lost the confidence of Labour MPs in the same way he would quit.

Mr Watson’s spokesman said he led MPs in calls for a swift contest so Labour could get back to “winning the country for Labour and stopping the Tories”.

Ms Eagle has the backing of a host of senior Labour MPs including more than a dozen former frontbenchers.

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Earlier in the day Ms Harman dismissed the idea of a legal challenge from Mr Corbyn if his name is not on the ballot.

She told BBC Radio 4: “The idea that the leader of the party, having lost the confidence of Labour MPs, then takes the national executive of the party to court is just more dysfunction upon more dysfunction and the party is suffering.

“If you win that leadership that doesn’t give you the right to fail. It gives you the privilege of having that chance to try and lead the party.

“If you fail, you can’t take the party down with you.”

Ms Eagle said it will be her job to rebuild Labour as a powerful Opposition with a genuine prospect of winning back power.

“Everything we’re proud of – from the NHS, to the minimum wage, to equality legislation – is there because we were in Government,” she said, to rapturous applause.

“I’m not here for a Labour Party that just takes part. I’m here to win. I’m not going to stand back to allow Britain to become a one-party Tory state.

“We owe too much to the millions in our country who look to us to help them make a better life.”

Her launch was somewhat overshadowed when Andrea Leadsom announced she was pulling out of the Tory leadership race just as Ms Eagle took to the stage.